This Game
by Hari-Aisu
Summary: In the end, they were just two players within a much larger game, both replaceable in their own right. So what was to stop them from actually reaching over the distance that divided them apart? LxLight


Title: _**This Game**_

* * *

It hurts to look at you sometimes.

To know that you have to die by my hand…

It simply hurts.

In you, I've met both my greatest of enemies and dearest of allies, wrapped in a scraggly little package I would have never known to have looked for.

Someone so much like me that it **hurts**, yet someone so different it **disgusts **me.

Or is it really Kira?

As sad as it is, I don't think I even know anymore...

Beyond my dreams of a new world, I wonder at times, when it's just me and my own thoughts, what it would have been like if I had just met you first.

But those are just flights of fancy.

Things to dream of when the curiosity of what's behind that façade overcomes me completely and I can't help but wonder about just who you could **be**.

But when the light hits those dark, macabre eyes in just the right way…

I don't regret it.

This is the path we both chose. With each moment that passes, we both know that somehow, we would have never actually made it past the starting line if kisses had been exchanged and touches had been freely given, at least, not with each other. It's a sick game we both play, but play we do.

If only for that one glance that we each know could be our last…

We play for more than just ourselves.

This useless pride…

It's what's cost me the most precious thing I can never have.

And that is why I cannot lose.

Not now.

Not when I'm so close.

* * *

I hate you.

It is a simple and precise emotion, clean cut in its entirety.

It is what I think to myself as I watch you in this college setting, knowing that this façade is killing me inside.

At times, I wish for indifference.

But I can no longer delude myself into thinking I feel absolutely **nothing **for you.

It goes beyond the realm of even my shield of lies, and at this moment, I chose to hate you for that fact.

Anything else is unacceptable.

Yet with each second that passes, this disturbing detachment manages to chain us far better than any handcuff or cord ever could.

For you see, in this game, I know I shall win. Even if not by own mental processes, another shall come to take my place as justice…

And you shall fail.

It is comforting in a way.

If I wanted to, I could reach out.

If I wanted to, I could stop deluding myself.

But when the light manages to hit your empty chocolate gaze in just the right way…

I don't regret it.

This game we play, it is more than just you and me in this complicated race. It is fate playing its card of inevitability; for we weren't the first players on this board and we will not be the last. You think that it stops with just me. I know it will not end with you. It is what both binds us together and sets us apart.

If only for that one glance that we each know could be our last…

We play for more than just ourselves.

This useless insight…

It's what's cost me the most precious thing I can never have.

And that is why I cannot lose.

Not now.

Not when I'm so close.

* * *

"Raito-kun?"

Raito blinked, clutching the folders he held within his arms close to his chest as the older man he was bound to continued to stare at the computer screen, face set in the apathetic mask it was usually contorted in.

"Yes, Ryuuzaki?"

With just a turn of the head, L had the young 17-year-old boy locked within his gaze, thoughts hidden behind a tilt of a head and a nibble of a thumb.

"I wish to tell Raito-kun that it has been a pleasure to have known him. That is all."

Raito simply cocked his head to the side as the man then turned back to the computer screen in front of him, refusing to acknowledge the boy after the confusing statement made. The cinnamon-haired boy resolutely got back to reading the files within his hands, not sure he'd be able to focus after the strange comment thrown his way by none other than L.

Even if it had filled him with a feeling of warmth he could not exactly name.

'_Will I ever fully understand this guy?_' The thankfully oblivious boy complained within his mind, frustrated with both the case and the elusive man beside him. With a single huff and a twitch of the eye, Raito's concentration righted itself once again, completely enraptured with the monster that was the Kira case.

If only he knew just what it was L was actually hiding underneath that apathetic exterior.

'_He does not know… And he cannot know._' L thought to himself, completely in tune with the naively innocent teenager beside him. '_Soon, this game…_'

The dark-haired insomniac sighed internally as he mulled over random percentages in his brain, intent on making some sort of progress, if only within his own mind.

If only they _**both **_knew whilst there was still time to choose…

This game they both played…

_**It will be the end of us both.**_

* * *

Why is it every drabble I post as a stand-alone is so damn angsty? I don't know. Blame FEA for this one. I think that that story is quite literally crushing my soul. Lol! I don't think this one made much sense either since the thoughts and and actual scene were in two completely different points on the DN timeline... Oops? Lol! Hoped you enjoyed anyway!

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. But if I did... well, let's just say it's better if I didn't and leave it at that. Lol!


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